


But Don't Stop Trying

by violentdarlings



Category: James Bond (Movies), James Bond - All Media Types, James Bond - Ian Fleming
Genre: BAMF Moneypenny, F/M, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sean Connery Era, Sex, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-12
Updated: 2015-04-12
Packaged: 2018-03-22 12:28:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3728938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violentdarlings/pseuds/violentdarlings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Moneypenny is kidnapped by SPECTRE. Featuring Connery!Bond, sassy!M, and BAMF!Moneypenny.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But Don't Stop Trying

**Author's Note:**

> A labour of love. Title taken from Moneypenny's line to Bond: "Flattery will get you nowhere, but don't stop trying."

 

Moneypenny opens her eyes to grey stone and for a moment believes she’s still dreaming. That is, until she feels the bite of her stiletto heels crushing her toes into submission, until she moves her head a fraction and spikes of pain drill into her skull. Sitting up is even more of a chore, but reveals a small room of about ten feet by six, no windows, and one single door with a tiny barred window.

And that’s when it dawns: she’s in a cell.

A cell with a concrete slab topped with a thin mattress, and a bucket in the corner in lieu of an actual toilet. The only light comes from a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling, and that’s when the panic starts to set in because holy God and Jesus Christ she’s in a fucking cell.

Moneypenny doesn’t often swear, but she thinks this time, the situation definitely calls for it.

xx

She tries counting minutes, but quickly gets confused and gives up. She takes off her heels and sets them beside her on the mattress within easy reach. She runs over the basic self-defence she’d learned when she started at MI6, and with a sensation of raw disgust, she uses the bucket when necessary. She even has an escape plan all worked out, a la the 00s, but it all flies out of her brain when the man walks in.

Tall, almost skeletally thin, he looks as if a stiff breeze will blow him over, and she contemplates stabbing him with a stiletto heel for a moment. Then she looks up into his eyes, and all thought of fighting him drains out of her. His hard eyes seem to pierce right into her, filled with nothing but cruelty and sharp, sure certainty.

“You are Eve Moneypenny,” he states, and she nods. “You work for MI6.”

“No,” she tells him. “I work for an accountant in –” Her words are cut off when he delivers a sharp, hard smack across her face, and she lifts a hand to her burning cheek in astonishment and fear.

“Do not lie to me,” he warns, and Moneypenny blinks back sudden tears that she refuses to let fall.

“I’m not. I don’t know anything about MI6. Please, where am I?”

His only answer is to strike her again.

xx

Much later, she’s curled up on the insufficient mattress, the light overhead gone out. A panel has been slid over the window in the door, leaving her in pitch darkness, and with nothing to distract her from the memories of the last hours.

He’d struck her a few more times, but she’d stuck to her story and he didn’t like that at all. At one point he’d gripped her hard by the upper arm and dragged her to her feet, only to throw her bodily into the opposite wall. And now, shivering from cold and bruised and bleeding, there is nothing but the darkness, and the silence.

It lasts for a long time, and Moneypenny starts to think they’ve just left her here. Abandoned her to slowly starve to death - although really, she’s likely to die of dehydration first. A cut on her cheek starts to burn hotter than the rest of her, throbbing painfully, and she puts an icy hand over it. It helps, a little.

She’s dropped into a painful, fitful sleep when the door opens with a clang. She sits bolt upright, eyes shut hard at the sudden influx of light when the overhead bulb is clicked on.

“My dear girl,” says a soft, velvety voice, and for a moment, a foolish, fleeting moment, Moneypenny imagines it is James. No matter that the voice sounds nothing like him, or that James would have called her by her surname. Hope is an irrational thing, and it dies a painful death when she cracked an eye open, and saw who had come.

In contrast to the previous man, this one is short, with a rounded frame. He presses a heavy hand against the infected wound, tutting, the heavy rings on his thick fingers indenting into her face. Despite his gentle words and soft voice, his eyes are cold and cruel like the other man, and he has a hideous moustache crouching on his upper lip like an ugly caterpillar.

“Look at what he’s done to your beautiful face,” Ugly Moustache says, removing his plump hand, and she has to fight back a shudder of mingled disgust and relief, now that the offending appendage is gone. “You poor girl. Come now, is MI6 really worth enduring such torment?”

Wordless, Moneypenny stares up at him, trying to convey pure ‘fuck you’ with her eyes. It seems to work, because he gives an empty chuckle at her. Like she’s an amusing diversion, a harmless little kitten.

“Loyalty,” he pronounces smoothly. “It’s an admirable trait, my dear. You should be commended for it. But really, it will be much easier for you if you tell us what we want to know. Aren’t you hungry by now?”

She is, actually, violently and painfully in a way she’d never known before. It comes in waves, sometimes a dull ache, sometimes a stabbing agony. She nods, although she feels like she’s betraying someone, and the bastard pats her on the head.

“Good girl,” he croons, and Moneypenny wants to gag. “Tell me. How many of the 00 agents are currently in Britain?”

“None that I’m going to tell you about,” she snaps, and a flicker of fury crosses his face before it settles back into the jovial mask. Abruptly, she gives up on the non-violent approach, and with the speed of a striking cobra, she rakes her nails down his face. It’s a good, solid scratch, blood already starting to flow as he stand stock still, evidently as shocked by her behaviour as she is. But like a rusted automaton he comes back to life, fury twisting his comical face into something inhuman.

“You little bitch!” he thunders, all the fake kindness gone from his voice, and with one blow he knocks her to the floor.

xx

From what she understands, they have twelve hour shifts in guarding her, with one man per shift. Moneypenny can hear them, faintly, through the walls and the crack at the base of the door. Thin Man paces a lot, Ugly Moustache talks to himself, and each shift they come in at least twice to interrogate her. Everything from overseas allies to what brand of tea M prefers, and she either stays silent (cue violence) or gives them ridiculously, sarcastic remarks (triggering even more violence). Still, they start feeding her soon after her encounter with Ugly Moustache, so she supposes they still intend to break her.

She estimates she’s been there a week when the schedule changes. Oh, the hours stay the same, but two new players come into this tiny space her world has telescoped down to.

(She’d heard Thin Man say that ‘the boss’ hadn’t thought ‘she would last this long’, and to ‘step things’ up. Another man has responded, voice too low to be heard even as she strained her ears, and then the muffled thunking that signalled someone coming or going. In this case, Thin Man leaving.)

Hours seem to go by before the new man comes to visit her. She’s sitting up on the bed staring blankly into mid-air when he enters, and she refuses to look at him. Childish, perhaps, but what other option does she have? Still, she peers at him out of the corner of her eye.

The new man is nondescript, like some of the 00 agents who specialise in blending in, but where they have quiet dignity, this man has none. Determinedly she stares into space, even as he approaches and her hands curl instinctively into fists.

“Here’s the thing,” he says conversationally, sitting down next to her on the bunk as though they‘re a pair of innocuous strangers meeting in a park. She has to steel herself so she doesn’t flinch away. “I’m not going to ask you any questions. I don’t give a damn about MI6, or those 00 idiots, or you.” He strokes a hand down her arm, his fingers lingering on her skin. “Well, you. Your body, at least.”

He takes his hand away, and Moneypenny shoves her elbow up and out, feeling a satisfying crunch as it connects with his nose. He howls, blood pouring down his face and splattering his shirt, and she flees to the other corner of the cell, shifting her centre of gravity low. If he wants to hit her, he’s going to get a goddamn fight.

But this one’s a coward, and he heads for the door quickly, forearm pressed against his nose. He pauses on the threshold and narrows his eyes. “You’ll pay for that later, little girl,” he informs her, making a break for it and slamming the door, leaving her in darkness once again. Still, even as her funny bone tingles painfully for well over an hour afterwards, she finds herself grinning into the black as she recalls the crunch his face had made when she’d elbowed him.

(She does pay for it, later. He sneaks in while she’s sleeping and she wakes to his hands snapping cuffs onto her wrists. “Coward!” Moneypenny shrieks at him, half out of her head with fear, and he gags her roughly with a rag, before his slimy hands go lower to paw at her breasts. She stares up at the ceiling, goes away in her mind to a place that offers relief from this situation she has found herself in. James, killing them all. Or even better, her hands on the gun.)

xx

Hours later, a jaunty tread can be heard in the next room, and light floods in once more. Moneypenny blinks away the crust of sleep and inactivity in her eyes, waiting for them to adjust.

“You have got to be kidding me,” she says aloud, and the man flashes her a grin. He looks for all intents and purposes like a caricature, all hair slicked back and snappy clothes, but the tray of food he dumps on the floor is more than welcome.

“You know it, baby,” he says, voice light and youthful. Jesus, he makes her feel old and imprisoned. “Why don’t you tell me all about those terrible cats at MI6 and then we can have some fun.” She grimaces, her face turned away from his, and she can feel the inflamed flesh stretch tightly and painfully.

“You’re American,” she says, and he nods as he fishes out a cigarette. “Well, I won’t hold that against you.” He chortles, lighting up.

“You’re funny,” he says, and grimly she contemplates driving that cigarette into the soft flesh of his inner arm.

“That’s me,” she says grimly, “the funny hostage.”

“Come on, baby,” he coaxes.

“Not a chance.”

Hound Dog, as she christens him in the privacy of her own brain, doesn’t hit her. Doesn’t touch her in places she doesn’t want to be touched. But sweet Christ, he’s annoying.

xx

She thinks they’re beginning to give up on her. The food still comes once per shift but there is less interrogation and more ignoring her like she’s not even there. Moneypenny estimates it’s been just over a month the day Thin Man brings in a pile of dry food and a pitcher of water, remaining silent to her questions as though she doesn’t even exist. He slams the door, leaving the little slot open to put faint fingers of light into her cell, considering the light bulb has long since given up the ghost.

For a long time, nobody comes at all, and the pitcher of water gets lower and lower and finally is gone. She loses the energy to move, to plot, and lies quietly on the bed, not quite resigned to the end, but certainly getting close.

Until she hears voices shouting, and when the cell door slams open all four of them are there. It’s an aberration, and they all seem to be clutching a weapon of some kind; another deviation from the norm. Usually they just use their fists.

“Is it time to kill me?” Moneypenny asks wearily, but none of them pay any notice to her. They’re staring fearfully at a heavy iron door, and she manages to stumble to the open doorway, gaining her first glimpse of the room outside her prison. There’s a futon and a stove, a table and chairs, a glass of water left lazily abandoned. Without thought she starts towards it, but she’s weak, and quickly Thin Man looms in front of her, and tightens his fingers around her throat. She claws at his hands, the booming of the iron door echoing in her ears, or perhaps that’s just her heartbeat, and a familiar bellow that makes her want to stay. Yet when the darkness comes, she welcomes it.

xx

For a long time she drifts in blackness, before slowly swimming up towards the light. When Moneypenny blinks her eyes open the first thing she sees is M peering down at her, a mixture of relief and concern on his face. She’s confused as all hell and for a moment can’t remember a damn thing; it’s kind of a blessing. Once she remembers what occurred, she wishes she could forget. She takes in the sterile surroundings; a hospital, then.

“What happened?” she asks groggily, voice nothing more than a rasp, and M winces, his taut expression so unlike his usual blandness.

“You were kidnapped,” he says with trademark bluntness, and Moneypenny manages an eye roll. A smile breaks over her boss’s face at a hint of her usual attitude.

“I know that,” she grates out, and M’s smile vanishes. “What happened - was James there, I thought I heard –” And that’s when her voice decides to give out completely, leaving her silent but for her harsh breathing as she tries to force the words out.

“Miss Moneypenny, do stop attempting to speak,” M says tartly, even as he pats her arm in concern. “I wonder - ah, here it is.” With his other hand he’s been fumbling in his coat pocket, and presently he produces a small notebook and a stub of a pencil. “Try this.” The pencil feels strange in her hand after so long inactive, but she’s not the best damn secretary at MI6 for nothing.

 ** _How long?_** Moneypenny prints carefully, and M frowns.

“How long were you gone, how long have you been asleep, or how long until you leave the hospital?” he asks, which earns him another eye roll. “Careful, Miss Moneypenny,” he warns, and his stern tone, so familiar and so missed, brings tears to her eyes. To hide it, she busies herself with the notebook.

**_All of the above._ **

“Very well,” M agrees, fingers twitching as he locks them together. “You were incarcerated in what appeared to be an abandoned building some twenty miles out of London.” So close, she thinks tiredly. “It was bought by SPECTRE three years ago, although the purchase was kept very quiet, to the point where the building was perceived to be condemned. Below ground, however, was a serviceable set of living quarters and, of course, your cell. You were there for five weeks and a day –what’s that?”

**_It felt longer._ **

“I imagine it would have, Miss Moneypenny. When you did not return from your month’s leave, I set 007 on the task – but I digress. You were conscious when you arrived at the hospital but were sedated due to extreme distress. I believe you gave one of the doctors a rather spectacular black eye – oh, do stop grinning.”

**_I refuse._ **

“The insolence amongst the young these days is a terrible thing. This is the first time you’ve been awake since you were sedated eighteen hours ago. As for coming back to work –”

**_James found me?_ **

“Correct. He was a trifle… over enthusiastic upon locating you. Every man who kept you against your will is now dead.”

Moneypenny breathes deep, takes the knowledge into the heart of her like a small dark bead of condensed hatred. Dead. All of them. Thin Man, Ugly Moustache, Wandering Hands, and Hound Dog. Thanks to James.

_**Good.** _

M squints down at the single word, and grimaces. “On one hand, yes. On the other, we have no one to interrogate.”

**_I don’t care. They were disgusting._ **

M shifts uncomfortably in his chair. “It’s all over now,” he says with the air of someone who has no idea what to say, and gingerly Moneypenny pats him on the arm. She’d glad she hadn’t written, **_they hurt me,_** because her boss really would have no idea how to handle that.

 ** _So where’s James now?_** M cracks a wry grin.

“I sent him to Iceland to cool his heels,” M said, and she musters up a faint smile at the joke. “Of course, knowing 007, he may be back in England by now. But never mind that. Iceland. SPECTRE may have a base there.”

**_May? You don’t sound sure._ **

“Miss Moneypenny,” M snaps tartly. “I don’t have to answer to the rampaging curiosity of my members of staff.”

 ** _It’s like I never lef_** _t,_ she writes down, eyes slipping shut, and M makes an odd little noise that might have been a laugh.

“Quite, Miss Moneypenny. Now, I suggest you sleep.”

She can’t agree more.

xx

_“Moneypenny, Penny, Penny, what have they done to you?” Strong arms scoop her up and hold her close to a muscled chest, but automatically she starts to fight against the embrace. Never mind that the unknown man is holding her tenderly, never mind she knows the cadences of his voice as well as she knows her own. She’s been fighting a lot lately, and it has become an instinctive reaction. “Hush, now, it’s all right.”_

Moneypenny wakes up lathered in sweat, sitting bolt upright in the hospital bed. The first thing she notices is that it’s night. The second thing is that James Bond is folded into an uncomfortable looking chair at her bedside. Despite the chair’s dubious charms he is sound asleep, head pillowed on his arms which in turn rest on her bed. Her violent awakening hasn’t seemed to disturb him overmuch, though.

He looks terrible. Even in sleep he looks tense, dark smudges under his eyes, stress lending him faint lines she’s never noticed before. James looks weary down to his bones but Christ, she’s so glad to see him.

She puts a hand on his dark hair, straightening the mussed strands. At that James starts to stir, and Moneypenny removes her hand.

“Hello, 007,” she rasps, and gives up on talking, reaching for the little pocketbook that M has so thoughtfully left her. James has a pained expression on his face like hearing her try to talk is breaking his heart. But surely not.

“How are you?” he asks, seemingly for lack of anything else to say, and Moneypenny shrugs.

**_Sore. M said you found me._ **

“Yes.”

 ** _Thank you, James._** Bond makes a horrible choked noise that could be a laugh.

“You should have never been in that situation in the first place,” he snaps. Moneypenny shrugs.

 ** _I knew it wasn’t the safest job when I started._** She hesitates a moment before writing her next question. ** _Did you find anything in Iceland?_** 007 regards her with an expression of gentle recrimination.

“Moneypenny. Even if I had, you know I wouldn’t be able to tell you here.”

 ** _I know._** Another hesitation. **_Thank you for killing those men. I would be dead without you._**

“Don’t,” James snaps harshly, jumping to his feet to pace, and Moneypenny looks up at him in surprise. “Don’t thank me. You were there for weeks, and no one knew.”

**_It wasn’t –_ **

“Don’t!” he says again, cutting her off mid-sentence by sweeping the little book onto the floor. “For God’s sake,” he says studying his shoes like they’re the most fascinating things in the world. “For God’s sake, Moneypenny. I’ll dream of it to the day I die, that moment when I wrenched open that bloody door and saw that bastard throttling you –” His voice ends in a choked off noise that makes her heart contract painfully in her chest. Mutely, she holds out her hand for her little book, and James retrieves it with a clatter that makes Moneypenny think he is trying to hide his feelings. He sits back down but can’t keep still, leg twitching, shoulders slumped.

**_I’m all right, James._ **

“Yes,” he says passionately, raising his eyes to hers, “But what if you weren’t? What if I’d stopped for a cigarette along the way, or a drink, or a –” He cuts himself off abruptly, but it’s not like she’s unaware of his predilections. True, the thought of James in bed with yet another youthful beauty (whilst she was being tortured, no less) is a horrendous one. But James without his foibles would not be James.

**_But you didn’t._ **

“I could have,” he replies, bending his head, and Moneypenny hates to see him brought so low, yet she does not know what to say to ease his pain. “I almost did.”

Moneypenny has nothing to say to that, and she lays down her pencil. Gently she takes 007’s hand in her own and after a moment of inactivity, he holds tight.

xx

It is the day before she is due to be discharged. M visits again with a recalcitrant Bond skulking behind him. M runs through his plan for her return home and Moneypenny very courteously waits for him to finish before airing her objections.

“Let me see if I understand correctly. You’re putting one of the best agents we have on what amounts to baby-sitting duty?” Her voice is still little more than a croak, but it seems to have an impact. M fixes her with a beady-eyed glare and James is stiff as a weatherboard with indignation.

“SPECTRE like to tie up loose ends,” 007 says heatedly. “Sending someone to kill you in your own home would be nothing to them.” He’s right, she knows that, but the thought of James lurking around her flat while she’s recuperating is borderline unthinkable.

“One of the other agents –” she begins, and she can see James physically flinch as though someone has struck him a blow. Meanwhile, M’s gaze is like flint.

“Are you questioning whether 007 is up to the task?” he asks, voice like iron, but she’s been his secretary too long to be cowed by his steely tone.

“No,” she says in resignation.

“I should think not. Two weeks, Miss Moneypenny?”

“One,” she replies. “I’ll recover faster if I’m not sitting around moping.” M’s eyes seem to gain a mischievous glint.

“Very well,” he replies, voice as even as ever, before he leans forward and whispers conspiratorially: “Thank God for that. The girl I have now is terrible.”

xx

Bond comes to pick her up from the hospital at 0900 sharp and he drives her to her apartment without asking for directions. Moneypenny imagines he had been here, during his investigation into her disappearance. She climbs the stairs to her flat and opens the door, James just behind her with a bag in each hand. She takes in her flat tiredly. If Bond and the rest of MI6 have been traipsing through the place, then it certainly doesn’t look like it. It looks just as she left it, if rather more dusty. “You can have the bed,” she rasps as she turns the key to her flat, James trailing in her wake.

“Certainly not,” he answers. “You’re not well, you need to rest.” She laughs, but judging from the faint crease in his brow, it doesn’t sound like one.

“You won’t fit on the sofa, James,” she retorts. “Don’t be a fool.” His eyes narrow, but Moneypenny is not one of the dainty girls that Bond can push around so easily. She glares at him, snaps a bit more, and later that night beds down on her sofa. The comforting and mildly irritating sound of Bond snoring lulls her to sleep.

In the days that follows **,** Moneypenny learns several things. One: recuperating is boring. Two: she really needs to update her book collection. And three: James is just as ill-suited to house arrest as she is. He prowls, he paces, he refuses to eat at decent hours.

She is due back on work on Monday, and it is around Thursday that Moneypenny starts to truly climb the walls. One would think, she muses, after a period of captivity she would be better at doing nothing. But perhaps those interminable weeks has rubbed away her capacity to sit and do nothing, like varnish rubbed off of wood. More distracting is the glances Bond keeps giving her when he thinks she isn’t looking; long, lingering, and full of a new consideration, as though she has done something he did not think her capable of.

In the years to follow, Moneypenny will remember those glances, and two more things beside. The memorable moment in which Bond walks in on her in the bath and stares for a full fifteen seconds before beating a hasty retreat. And the night before she is due back at work.

It is a dreary Sunday afternoon. Moneypenny has picked out her outfit for work, ironed her favourite shirt and set out her best shoes. James is sitting out of the balcony, regardless of the clouds, smoking and brooding. Moneypenny refuses to let him smoke inside the flat.

He comes inside while Moneypenny is sitting on the sofa reading, and calmly she lays the book down.

“James,” she says coolly. “What would you say if I asked you to take me to bed?” Moneypenny relishes the stunned look on his face.

“I would say nothing,” Bond replies eventually. “I would be far too busy in the actuality of taking you to bed.” Moneypenny breathes deep, as if absorbing his words right to the heart of her. “But I would also ask you what has brought upon your sudden desire to bed me.” Moneypenny shrugs.

“It is not a sudden desire,” she tells him. “More of an occasionally thought upon whim. I’m back at work tomorrow,” she says, and Bond swallows thickly.

“I know.” Moneypenny shrugs and looks out the window.

“If something is to happen, James, it must happen now,” she says firmly. “You and I both know the potential disasters that could occur if colleagues in our field get involved with one another.”

“I’m not much one for the rules, Penny,” James says darkly, and at that Moneypenny can’t help but laugh.

“Don’t I know it!” she replies lightly. “Expense forms filled out incorrectly, kit never returned or outright destroyed, having to debrief every young attractive woman who wanders into your path – James, I know you.” She looks up, and is struck by the depth of feeling in him.

“Yes,” he says heatedly. “You do know me. That’s why it’s you.” Moneypenny can’t quite breathe. The pressure in the room is off the charts; at least, it feels that way, when he looks at her like that.

“Me?” she asks, and James eyes her hungry like a wild thing, all savagery and possession.

“You,” he says, and cradles her head in his hands, tender despite the wildness suffusing his frame. “Penny. You.”

And he kisses her.

xx

Moneypenny does not know how long she sits by him on the sofa, lazily kissing as the sunset slowly dies away and the night fills the room. Nor does she know when she slings a leg over him to straddle his lap, or when she pushes him back against the cushions so she can explore the curve of his neck, the hollow of his throat. She’d always rather thought Bond would be more dominant in bed, a seducer. Yet he seems content to let her take the lead, to tangle his hands in her hair or rest them on the curve of her waist and nothing more.

“Such a gentleman, 007,” she says when she pulls away from James’ throat, admiring her handiwork. “The rumours going around MI6 must be greatly exaggerated.” He frowns in pure masculine pride, but the light taunt does not elicit a heightened physical response from him. If anything, he seems to draw away.

“You were held captive for over a month,” he says softly, so softly Moneypenny wonders if she is imagining it. “You were beaten, bruised. Penny, there was a camera in the cell. I saw the tapes. I know they touched you.” Moneypenny draws in a sharp breath. She has not let herself think about it since her rescue.

“That means nothing,” she dismisses, but she sees what Bond is getting at. “James. I am not afraid of you,” she says, and Bond stiffens as though she has poured ice water down his spine. “This is worlds away from what happened in that cell. You do not need to check your strength with me. I was not broken. I did not bend.” And oh, the drama, but maybe it is just what James needs to hear because his arms come around her tight, his hips rocking up sharply and there, there, just where she needs him. He is hard against her, hard chest and belly and thighs and his cock pressing into where he could be inside her, if only she was not dressed.

“James,” she murmurs and he devours the word, taking it from her lips as though wanting to always know the sound of his name when gasped from her throat tight with passion. He lifts her without a word and Moneypenny clings to him, wrapping her legs around his waist as he strides down the passage into her bedroom. There, he deposits her on the bed and begins to strip, his eyes never leaving hers, shoes and socks and suspenders and shirt until only his trousers remain and she can run her fingers over his chest, the dark hair there, the little buds of his nipples.

“Penny,” Bond says, his voice heavy and dark, “Penny, my girl, you’re wearing too many clothes.” His hands are at her waist, lifting her shirt, unfastening her brassiere so that her breasts spill out heavy and full into his hands. She moans unabashedly when he rolls his thumbs over her nipples, when he bends his dark head to suckle on her like she tastes of heaven, and sparks sizzle through her skin and down her body and it’s glorious, truly, glorious.

How much time she loses like that she does not know. How could she, when James is so close and touching her, kissing her breathless and Moneypenny did not submit to captivity and torment but it feels so good to let James take care of her. His fingers undo her trousers and slip them over her hips, throwing them haphazardly on the floor, and Moneypenny gasps when he pushes her back on the bed to press his mouth against the silk of her knickers.

It is not precisely what she had wanted but now that he is there, she cannot bring herself to mind. He nibbles and licks at her inner thighs until she trembles; traces his way down to her knee and bites the delicate flesh behind it until she is quivering. “You… are a tease, Bond,” she tells him, and feels the rumble of James’ laugh deep in his chest.

“Coming from you, Moneypenny, that’s practically a compliment,” he says, and pushes her knickers aside to nose at the slickness between her legs. Moneypenny cries out, lets her head fall back, knots her hands in his hair and _shakes_ , it’s so damn good.

When she comes it’s almost a surprise. Not that Bond is so good at this, of course; not even that she is capable of climaxing like this. More of a sudden sharpness, an acuteness of feeling that swells and swells until she cannot help but fall into it. James licks into her until she is forced to shove him away; he comes up and kisses her, and she likes the taste of herself on his tongue. She sinks back onto the pillows, lets him settle between her thighs, still trousered and the press of him hot and urgent and ready. She touches him, enjoys the involuntary buck of his hips, and knows that neither of them have it in them to wait any longer.

“Get those off,” she orders him, and while he is stripping she flips herself over, rising onto her hands and knees, waiting for him. There is the rip of a package and she is absurdly grateful that Bond’s many conquests have taught him a thing or two about safe sex.

“Penny…” His voice is low and awed. “Are you sure?”

“James,” Moneypenny says tartly. “For once, just do as you are told.” She hears his laugh, feels the blunt press of him against her, and she is filled in the most delicious way that even Bond’s talented tongue, for all its tricks, cannot quite measure up to. His body slams hard against her, his fingers are hard enough on her hips to leave bruises for her to remember him by tomorrow, and Moneypenny feels life in her again.

One hand comes up to fist in her hair, to yank her back until she is almost perpendicular against James, his other arm coming around her to give him purchase as he thrusts into her. “Do you like this, Penny?” he growls and Moneypenny shudders, feeling both caged and set free; the dichotomy has her head spinning.

“Yes, James,” she replies, breathless, so close again, teetering on the brink. “Do you?” James laughs against her.

“Christ, Moneypenny,” he rasps. “You’re so fucking good. No man wouldn’t like this.” Moneypenny smiles at that.

“Perhaps,” she allows, her voice hitching into a gasp when James squeezes her breast, “but it’s for you. James. It’s for you.”

He groans, deep and harsh and guttural, his hips jerking into an erratic rhythm, and he lets Moneypenny go, letting her settle back onto her hands. She braces herself with one and lets the other wander between her legs, her fingers flicking her clit, occasionally bumping them into the place where she and James are joined. _Joined_. The feeling fills her up, as effervescent and consuming as freedom and light, and she feels James grip her hips had and thrust one last time, roaring a primal noise of sheer triumph.

Moneypenny is boneless and sated, and somehow she slithers onto her side, James following, softening inside her but still linking them together. “Don’t know why we didn’t do that years ago,” he rumbles softly, and Moneypenny shrugs.

“I wasn’t kidnapped years ago,” she replies, and Bond kisses her shoulder sloppily.

“Hmm,” he mumbles, wrapping his arms around her, flipping her to face him in his embrace. “Come here.” The kissing is lazy and sated, now for the simple joy of touch rather than as a precursor to something more. When they break for air Moneypenny sees her alarm clock glinting an obnoxious midnight in the dim light of a lamp. “We could go again,” James murmurs, and Moneypenny shrugs.

“If this is to be the only time,” she replies, and Bond’s teeth flash in the dark, a predator’s smile, but Moneypenny is not prey.

Later, the moon shines a pallid light into Moneypenny’s bedroom from where she has forgotten to close the curtains. It is the first night in her own bed since the night before she was taken, and how she has changed. And yet not, not really. She did not know before, that the worst could happen and that she would survive it.

As if hearing her thoughts, James stirs, presses a sleepy kiss to her shoulder. Moneypenny lets her breath go deep and even like she learned to in the cell. “I’m proud of you, Penny,” Bond says when he thinks she is asleep. “You survived.”

 _But not for you_ , Moneypenny finds herself thinking. _For me._

And that’s okay.

xx

James is still asleep when Moneypenny makes her way out of her apartment and through London into the office. She finds a stack of notes from the girl who’d been filling in for her, a welcome back itinerary from M, and a pistol in the second drawer of her desk. ‘For emergencies,’ says the small tag and Moneypenny regards it thoughtfully for a moment before dropping it back into her desk.

Bond is due in for a 0900 briefing with M regarding SPECTRE, but 0930 comes and goes before he bursts in the door wearing yesterday’s suit, his hair in disarray, a mark of passion just peeking over his collar. Moneypenny looks up, feels her role settle over her like a shadow and a weight, and fixes James with an expression that is both glare and fondness.

“Late as ever, I see,” she says as coolly as if she’s been on holiday for two months instead of kidnapped and recovering, as if she’d not spent the night in Bond’s arms.

“Moneypenny,” James murmurs, looking just for a moment bewildered, and Moneypenny just raises her eyebrows at him.

“Good morning, 007,” she says, and smiles.


End file.
